Divided We Fall
by Qwizbo
Summary: Miley discovers she has a rare form of MPD, and has to move to Indianapolis for treatment. There, she makes new friends... and learns some dark secrets. Read and review please!
1. Book 1, Chapter 1: Revelations

I don't think I'll ever forget the day Jackson told us he was moving out.

It definitely caught me by surprise. I don't think anyone was prepared for it. But one day that summer, he had news for us. Big news.

"So… I have something I want to say," he began,

"Go on," said Dad. To be honest, I thought he was going to show off some absolutely revolting, like a boulder-sized booger.

"Well…" Jackson stopped. I could tell he was nervous. "There's this girl. Her name is Juanita Rodriquez. And…" He paused again, looking even more nervous. He held this pause for about fifteen uncomfortable seconds. Then he blurted, "I'm getting married."

Dad and I screamed "WHAT?" in synchrony. We held blank expressions, also in synchrony. Finally, Dad motioned for him to continue.

"So… yeah, I'm also moving out."

The blank expressions returned.

" Really! I'm going to live with her"

Dad stunned me – and probably Jackson, too – by saying something nice. I would have thought he'd be angry for cracking this egg on our heads without warning. The words out of his mouth were "Ooh, how romantic. I might be interested in coming over one of these days. Where is this place?"

That's when Jackson dropped the biggest bombshell of them all: "Puntas Arenas."

"Puntas Arenas?" My voice came out as though I was in shock. Which I was. "Isn't that in… Chile?"

"Yeah."

"So you're moving… to Chile?"

"Yeah."

For a moment I was too stunned to speak. So was Dad. Then I uncontrollably jumped. "Yippee! Yahoo! Hurray! Hurrah! Jack-son's moving to Chi-le! Jack-son's moving to Chi-le!"

"Calm down…" warned Dad.

"I can't! Jack-son's moving to Chi-le! Jack-son's moving to Chi-le!" I grabbed my cell phone and dialed up Oliver. When he answered, I called out in a scream, "Jackson's moving to Chile!"

"No way. That's insane."

"Insane, but true. He's getting married. And he's gonna move to Puntas Arenas to live with her."

"That's unbelievable. I'm gonna call Lilly." Oliver hung up.

I know, I know. It's totally wrong to behave that way. But I was very glad to have that idiotic slimeball out of my life – hopefully forever.

I had no way of knowing my own life was going to take a similarly drastic turn just a few hours later.

* * *

"Only ninety minutes left before Jackson's plane arrives," I told Lilly and Oliver on the beach. "And then, FREEDOM!"

"Freedom is right," said Lilly. "I remember what his closet smelled like from the Vitolo incident. It's finally gonna get cleaned out now."

Oliver spoke up. "Didn't you like him? As in, like like him?"

"That was a dream I had," I reminded. "Remember?"

"Miles?"

"That's Daddy," I said. "Gotta go."

I rushed over to where he was. When I saw him, I asked, "What is it?"

"Remember going to the psychiatrist?"

"How could I forget?" It's true that Dr. Abratkiewicz was a bit of a nutcase. I think he was testing me to see if a bump on the head had mussed up my brain. Whatever he was doing, he didn't seem to be doing a good job of it.

Then Dad said something unexpected. "Listen. I got something in the mail from Dr. Abratkiewicz today. I'm sorry to say this, but… you've been diagnosed with Cashlin's syndrome."

"Uh… what's Cashlin's syndrome?

"I have no idea."

* * *

Seeing as how no one seemed to know what Cashlin's syndrome was – not even Dr. Abratkiewicz's letter helped – I figured the Internet was the best way to go.

As it turns out, Cashlin's is a form of multiple personality disorder. I could understand that. It makes sense, somewhat, for me to have that. I also discovered that it's believed everyone is affected by it, but there are only a few people it actually controls. Makes sense in my case, definitely. I'm controlled, and everyone else is affected.

Then I learned a few things I didn't want to know. It took years to subdue it, and the only place where the required treatment to subdue it was in Indianapolis. And knowing Dad, he would almost certainly want to subdue it.

Great. Now I was going to have to move too.


	2. Book 1, Chapter 2: Fellow Inmates

When we arrived in Indianapolis about a week later, the first thing we did was go to the apartment we'd rented out. It wasn't much, but it was enough to fit our belongings into. Of course, we didn't know it all our stuff would fit, because we hadn't been here yet. We just moved from Malibu to Indianapolis, just like that, more or less blindly.

Dad gave me a hasty lesson on how things were going to work. "Okay, so I drop you off at Bentley Hospital whenever you get called there. That's where they know how to cure Cashlin's syndrome – to be precise, you'll be in Room 101."

"Someone has a dark sense of humor."

"The folks at Bentley will guide you through that process. Understand?"

"Okay. I understand." I wasn't exactly sure why it needed to be cured, but oh well.

"Other than that, we just live life in this apartment. I've got you enrolled in a school around here, so by the time school comes around, you'll go there. Nothing too special."

"Got it. There's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"I don't really feel too well about how we handled the whole Hannah situation. I mean, think about it. A pop superstar announces she's raising money to benefit Cashlin's syndrome… and then what? We didn't do anything!"

"Don't worry, Miles. I did do something. I got it all under control. Mike and Lola are out telling everybody you were eaten by a shark."

"Eaten by a shark." I sighed, then turned away muttering, "Why does my life have to be so insane?"

* * *

The first time I was at Bentley Hospital, thinks were of course a little confusing. It took a while to find Room 101, and when we did, the door was locked. Two other teenagers were sitting on a bench outside the room, and one – a boy with a distinctly Japanese face and the build of a basketball player – motioned for me to sit down.

I sat in between the Japanese boy and the other one – an African-American girl, about my height, with long, ebony-colored hair and large eyes. About ten minutes went by – during which nothing much really happened – before a doctor came to let us in.

When I caught my first glimpse of room 101, I immediately understood why they called it that. I recalled reading _1984_ a while back, and this place made me think about that ending an awful lot. There were several high-tech body bags – well, that's what they looked like, at least – mounted against the room's black walls, a stark contrast to the white floor – and the white ceiling, for that matter.

The doctor gathered us in a circle. "Okay," he said. "My name is Dr. Colors-Dryden. I'm here to fix up your minds and get you on the straight path. Or something like that. But today isn't about that. It's about getting to know your fellow inmates!" He looked down at his list before he realized, I think, that there were only three names on it and he could memorize them with relative ease.

"First, though, I'm just gonna explain what you guys are here for. Cashlin's syndrome," Dr. Colors-Dryden read from a sheet I assumed was printed off the Internet, "is a form of multiple personality disorder in which the person is aware of the other personalities, and can switch willingly between them, but is directly caused by some brain thingy that's in everyone's brain that we don't even have a name for, that we don't know where it comes from and don't know why it activates in some people and not in all. But it does. And thus, you're here!"

The Japanese boy spoke up. "I think you lost whatever miniscule speck of credibility you may have had the moment you said "some brain thingy".

"Quiet, Suzuki."

"Yes, Dr. Colors-Dryden."

"Okay," spoke Dr. Colors-Dryden. "Today, we're not gonna be sticking you into those thingies on the walls. Instead, show yourself. Tell it as it is. Talk about you, you, yes I'm talking about YOU and Mr. Cashlin. Give us the best of both worlds."

Me and the other two youngsters in the room responded in perfect synchrony: "Too soon!"

Dr. Colors-Dryden was genuinely surprised: "What, she died?"

The African-American female made sure I didn't have to respond. "Yeah, didn't you hear? It's been the top news story all week. She got eaten by a shark."

"Really?" Dr. Colors-Dryden seemed to accept the news more with gladness than with sadness. "Well, I guess that's another silly thing to make extremely dumb jokes about in front of my patients. I'm up to ninety-three now!"

"And the number's only going to get bigger and bigger," I said, but no one was listening.

"Okay, so we've got Eastman, Stewart, and Suzuki. Let's start with Suzuki. Come on up, boy! Tell us your life story!"

"Okay," the boy Dr. Colors-Dryden called Suzuki began. "My name is Taylor Suzuki. I was the high-school basketball star back home, which wouldn't surprise anyone who's ever looked at me. I mean, look at me! Well, let's just say it got really boring because I was the only one scoring and all the rest were snoring – hey, look. I'm a poet, and I don't even know it.

Around the same time, my parents died, and I was afraid of what they were going to do to me. So I ran away. After that, for the most part, I went by the name of Xavier Kobayashi. And let's see…" I saw that he was counting on his fingers. "…I killed forty-four people, got caught, went to jail, broke out, killed… let's see… thirty-nine people, before I got caught again. And they were going to send me back to jail, except they found out I had Cashlin's and sent me here instead. I still don't know enough about this place to be able to decide if it's better or worse than jail."

"Oh, it's _definitely_ worse than jail." Dr. Colors-Dryden smiled with barely even a smile.

"You know," I spoke, "I think sometime in the future the world is gonna be a chaotic, dark, evil place. And it's gonna be a law than everyone has to constantly imitate the mannerisms of the chaotic, dark, evil emperor. And the young people aren't gonna like it, but they'll do it anyway because they're afraid of being extinguished. And after years of that, those mannerisms will implant themselves in the hyperspace inside their brains. And then there's no escaping."

"And why do you think that, Stewart?" questioned Dr. Colors-Dryden.

"Because I'm a hundred and eighty-one percent certain, Dr. Colors-Dryden, that you are actually _from_ that world."

"Ninety-four," he muttered. "Eastman. What about you?"

"Okay, listen. I'm Rachel. I don't talk too much. Only about famous people, because I'm into that sort of stuff. Let me just say the Cashlin side of me – yeah, too soon, I know – is the time travel version of a neat freak. My great-great-granddaughter, to be exact. Her name's Brittany. She has to prevent paradoxes and such, and it makes things confusing and such, and it wrecks my life and such, and I want to kill her and such, but I can't, because a long time ago I found out I had a split personality, and recently it was changed to Cashlin's. Sob story over."

"All right," declared Dr. Colors-Dryden. "And last but not least, Stewart!"

I really hadn't prepared for that moment. I didn't know what to say. Even as I squeaked out the words, "Hi, I'm Miley Stewart, and – " The world was pressing on me, and it hurt. Badly.

Then I collapsed.

* * *

Dr. Colors-Dryden was staring at me when I returned. He was sitting there, all nice and pleasant, an eerie contrast to the way he had been previously. Then, as if someone had turned on a light switch, he flopped back. "Suzuki, Eastman, I told you she was all right. She just fainted, that's all."

Taylor and Rachel looked at me. "Oh, good," stated a relieved Taylor. "I thought you were dead."

Rachel added, "Yeah, what he said."

"So…" reminded Dr. Colors-Dryden, "…you still haven't told your story."

"And I won't," I boldly stated.

"Why?" wondered Dr. Colors-Dryden.

I didn't hesitate to answer: "Because of a sign. I don't think you guys are meant to know."

* * *

**So there you have it. Chapter Two of Book One. I have a funny feeling somethin's special about this story, and I'm going to continue it as best as I can. Until next update, Reviews! Reviews!**


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